


Burn

by HowDidIGetUpHere



Series: Home Is Where The Symbiote Is [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Abuse, Actual plot, Angst, Experimentation, M/M, Other, Suspense, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:05:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 11,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19240711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowDidIGetUpHere/pseuds/HowDidIGetUpHere
Summary: Eddie and Venom's hard fought peace and happiness is taken when their children are abducted.A sub-plot of Home Is Where The Symbiote Is that comes after chapter 43 of the main fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An _actual_ storyline with an _actual_ plot?! Quite a few people asked for angst but I didn't want to clog up the main fic with multiple chapters of a specific storyline so I made this its own separate mini fic! 
> 
> This fic should be read after chapter 43 of Home Is Where The Symbiote Is. HIWTSI will continue separately from Burn but Burn will have some ramifications for HIWTSI. Rest assured HIWTSI will keep its overall happy flavor :)

The feeling of chewing on tinfoil. Or maybe the feeling of hitting the soft spot of your funny bone. Eddie never knew that’s what real fear felt like. They had seen a lot of devastating things in their time together. Death, maiming and unimaginable pain. This was worse than all of it. This was worse. This was their children.

And it was all normal before. It was normal and there was nothing to tell them this was coming.

They woke up, had breakfast and got the kids in the car for their third appointment with the doctors at SHIELD per their agreement- all normal and unremarkable things.

They got to SHIELD, he showed his agent’s badge and they were taken to the same medical bay as always- all normal and unremarkable things.

The doctor smiled, measured the kids’ heights, took their weights and drew the usual small and painless samples- all normal and unremarkable things.

Then the abnormal. Then the remarkable.

The heat, followed by the bright, followed by the burn.

Masked men. But not the usual SHIELD variety of masked men of which they were sometimes apart. Unfamiliar masked faces and armored bodies. They didn’t know them.

Venom tried to envelop his skin, tried to protect him but he forced them back. The fire would hurt them more than it would hurt him and he could always be patched up later. He didn’t consider the steel beam falling from above them. Venom and the kids would be okay, he reasoned, their biology would protect them so the blunt force trauma wouldn’t hurt them. Just him. And he’d be fine too given a little time. Venom would make sure.

Just use my body to get them out of the fire, V.

Hurry.


	2. Chapter 2

You know that when cancer goes away the doctors never say it’s cured. They say “remission”.

Remission doesn’t mean the cancer is gone. It just means it isn’t big enough to hurt you anymore.

Sort of gone but still a threat on a far off horizon. Or in the very back of your mind.

Still there but not big enough to hurt you.

But it can always come back, it can always grow. That’s what makes it remission and not a cure.

The Life Foundation had been in remission.

Now it was back. Regrown. Hurting again.

When Eddie woke up he was in a medical bay. Different one from the other. Not the one that was attacked. Probably on the other side of the Helicarrier. The Helicarrier that had been docked when they arrived but was now somewhere in the stratosphere according to the windows he could blearily see through.

His ears were still ringing from the blast. How long has it been?

_Where were Carnage, Agony, Lasher, Scream, Phage and Sleeper?_

“The kids! Where are my kids?!” He shot up through the aching, sore pain that still lingered even after Venom’s hard work to heal him up.

“Agent Brock...Eddie.” Director Hill was talking to him, he didn’t even see her there.

“The Life Foundation blew out the north medical bay. They got the children. We have agents pursuing them now. They’re headed west across the country.” She told him.

“Venom, come on. Venom we have to go now.” He said as he stood up out of bed on shaky legs, trying to ask his other to help keep him steady.

 **“Eddie, I am sorry. I could not protect them. They had sonics. We were all hurt. Eddie, I am so sorry.”** Eddie could feel Venom’s hurt, it was so bad he was losing his breath from it.

“We don’t have time now. It’s not your fault. You did everything you could. We both did. Come on, we have to _go_.”

Eddie didn’t know if he believed that _he_ had done everything he could but he did believe that Venom had. Truly. But he tried to stress that it was more important the kids be rescued than to pity themselves right now.

“Eddie! You’re still hurt and so is Venom. We have our best people on it.” Hill tried to stop him.

“They’re our children, Hill! We are the best people!” He couldn’t even tell that he was yelling.

“Eddie-” Hill started.

“I’ll take them.” They both looked to the doorway and saw Jessica Drew.

Spider-Woman, a high ranking SHIELD agent and a parent herself. But more than those things- their friend. She knew them, she knew the kids and she wanted to help them.

“Agent Drew-” Hill tried again.

“They’re obviously going no matter what. He can’t fly a quinjet but I can. I’ll get them there and run point on the team already in pursuit.” Jessica was already pulling her gloves on.

“Get them where, Jess?” Hill spoke to her more casually now.

“Just spoke to the commander of the pursuing team. San Francisco, that’s where they’re going and they’ve already got a head start so we don’t have time. If you’re going to nail me with insubordination it’ll have to wait until later, Hill.” Jessica stated.

Hill steeled herself and squared her shoulders.

“Just bring them back.”

They all knew that Maria was probably more angry that the Life Foundation was encroaching on territory she’d already staked claim on than anything else. But they also had the feeling that she cared for their children as much as she could care for anyone’s kids and they needed all they help they could get. Help from SHIELD was nothing to scoff at.

**“Eddie. You’re right we have to go now. They’re already miles ahead of us.”**

They forced his legs to steady and they followed Jessica to the jet.

The flight didn’t take long, not compared to the commercial flight they’d taken to the wedding at least. They were grateful.

“Eddie, I have intel and I need you to take it as neutrally as you can. Getting over emotional won’t help us find the kids any faster and if anything it’ll slow us all down.”

“Intel? You have intel? Tell me.” He answered with urgency.

“SHIELD scoured the incoming and outgoing flight passengers over the last week because the Life Foundation doesn’t have operations in New York so they’d have to fly in. Using their own plane would raise red flags and there’s no way they’d stage an attack on the Helicarrier without prior intel of their own from very recently-no more than a few days to a week. And three days ago...Three days ago there was someone flying back to San Francisco International from La Guardia using a corporate credit card that could be traced back to a company called Lavaria. Lavaria is a conglomerate pharmaceutical company with known ties to the Life Foundation and its too coincidental for the two things not to be related. The person using the credit card was Carl Brock, Eddie.” She didn’t look at them as she told them, she just kept piloting the jet as they approached the San Francisco tarmac.

They were right. They were right not to trust him.

But they let him get too close anyways.


	3. Chapter 3

Eddie and Venom considered going to his childhood home, where his father still resided last he or Mary checked but they felt this was a much more likely place to find Carl Brock. 

Saint Francis Memorial Hospital was the closest hospital his father would be able to get to, it was the best place to look. Venom recognized disease in Eddie’s species and his father wasn’t lying about his condition or the amount of time he had left. He couldn’t have been lying anyways. He wouldn’t have done this unless he knew his death was already inevitable. He’d need death to beat Eddie and Venom to him for this. 

“Hi, I’m looking for my father’s room.” Calling Carl that left a sour taste in Eddie’s mouth as he smiled politely at nurse at the hospital’s reception desk.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket, probably Jessica. She said Daredevil still had some connections with the more shadowy figures in San Francisco and she was shaking them down for anything she could get. He could read her message on the elevator.

“Are you visiting?” The nurse asked him.

“Yes, I’m his son.” That left an even more sour taste.

She wrote down the room number for him and as he walked a way she blinked a few times when she thought she saw his leather jacket shifting in a strange way. The thirteen hour shift must be making her tired.

On the elevator he read Jess’ text.

_Not getting much out here. No one seems to know anything. I’ll keep looking._

Venom sighed, sounding more hopeless than irritated. He wasn’t used to that from them.

The elevator doors pulled themselves open and Venom bristled a little, still not fond of hospitals. Eddie crumpled the slip of paper in his hand, the room number was etched into his brain. He’d probably never forget it. The last place his father would ever be.

Upon entering the sterile room he saw his father in the bed, wrinkled and weak. Struggling to breathe correctly. Coughing.

Carl’s breath was wet and gravelly, Eddie read somewhere once that it was called a Death Rattle. Somewhat comforting right now if he was honest, knowing it was over for him and they wouldn’t have to get their hands dirty doing it themselves. 

“Where are they, you son of a bitch?”

Carl groaned pathetically, Eddie didn’t care.

“Open your eyes. Look at me and tell us.” He kicked the side of the bed, jostling the sick old man.

“They’re bad, son. They shouldn’t exist.” Carl croaked.

“YOU shouldn’t exist!”

A passing doctor cleared his throat as he walked by. People being emotional probably wasn’t unusual in a hospital but they probably didn’t want him yelling either. He’d try to keep it down.

“You used to be so good, Eddie. I detest the day that thing found you. But over time...I resigned myself to losing my boy to a demon. I came to terms with your choice being yours. I never thought it would go any further than you. I never thought…” He trailed off into another coughing fit.

“They are a sin and an atrocity. They can’t be allowed to survive, Eddie.” He gasped.

“You’re a monster! You’re cruel!” Eddie screamed grabbing the front of Carl’s hospital gown and hauling him up. His light weight making him easy to jar.

Somewhere in the motion Carl was able to press the call button and before he could get anywhere there were nurses and orderlies bodily pulling him away from the bed. He fell to the floor and broke down. Retching on his own breath and crying.

“Please, please, please…” He sobbed.

“Please tell me where they are. They’re my _children_. They’re everything we have.”

He was begging and whimpering at his father’s feet. He was on his hands and knees. 

“If you have ever felt anything for me. Ever. _Please._ ” He pressed his forehead to the floor in submission.

Through his own screaming sobbing he heard more gasping and coughing from his father’s expiring body before the steady beeping machinery halted into a single ringing flat line. 

Carl was dead and they were left alone in an empty room with no idea of the fate of their taken family.


	4. Chapter 4

Eddie couldn’t stand so Venom hauled him to his feet and made him walk. He was trying to regain his strength in the hospital’s large and open lobby when someone was running up behind them. Venom very nearly took the person’s head off for getting too close but was able to stop just in time.

“Mr. Brock, as the next of kin we need you to confirm we carried out your father’s advanced directive.” The doctor held out a clipboard to them.

It was hard to make out through his blurred vision so he had to rub his eyes clear with the back of his arm. All the form said was that Carl left his wealth in its entirety to a Ms. Courtney Drake for “the advancement of xenobiological comprehension”. 

Drake.

The clipboard slipped from his hand and he could distantly hear it hit the floor as he sprinted out the entry doors, shoving through some doctors who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

“Drake! Courtney Drake!” His voice cracked as he yelled through his phone at Jessica who didn’t even have the chance to say anything first.

“Im checking the SHIELD database now.” Jessica’s voice was calm and composed, she knew a lead when she heard it- even if it was just a loudly given name over the phone.

The minutes waiting for her response seemed like all the time in the world.

“It’s exactly what you think, Eddie. Courtney Drake is the CEO of Life LLC, a resurgence of whatever was left of the Life Foundation after it went under. Relation to Carlton Drake is obvious. His sister or something.” 

“Where is it? Where is the headquarters?!” 

“Silicon Valley. I’m sending you the address now. The team and I will be backing you up so-” 

He hung up the phone and hoped Jessica wouldn’t be offended.

Silicon Valley was huge and ominous and sleek looking buildings dotted the whole thing. Any one of these places could easily pass for an insidious company trying to make strides in genetic innovation but they just needed the one this Drake bitch was in.

When they found the big building made up almost entirely of huge glass panes it was hard not to notice the distinct uniforms of the staff. Starch white lab coats over creased white slacks, crisp white button ups and straight white ties. Because that didn’t say evil organization or anything. Not exactly their color but Venom gave him a perfect replica that allowed them to walk inside with a group of other basically faceless employees. He really wishes he’d shaved better this morning, no one else here was as scruffy as him.

“You have your badge?” The burly man at the front desk eyed him suspiciously.

“Yep!” He grinned, quickly flashing his Costco card.

First rule of getting into places you’re not wanted is to act like you already belong there. Journalism 101.

**“Eddie, something is interfering. I cannot sense the children clearly enough to find them.”**

“Interfering? Is it Sleeper?” Eddie asked hopefully.

**“No. Sleeper’s interference is like a gap or an absence of feeling. This is...different. This is like a block. They are somewhere behind it.”**

“Okay, where’s the block then?”

**“Below us. Everything below us. It extends at least a mile in every direction.”**

“We have to get below ground then. That’s where they have to be.”

They got on the elevator, would it be dumb to hope for a button labeled ‘state of the art secret underground testing facility’? 

**“Yes, Eddie. It would be dumb.”**

“You think we should hide my face or something?” He asked once they were alone riding the elevator as far down as they possibly could.

**“No. You are quite unremarkable.”**

“Thanks.”

When the elevator let out to the basement that’s all it was. A basement. 

Water heaters, furnaces, leaky pipes and a concrete floor. 

That’s it.

“No, this can’t be it. There’s something else. There has to be something else.”

This was their only lead. Their kids were here. They had to be. _They had to be_.

They got back in the elevator and he frustratedly paced back and forth. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be a dead end. They were here in this goddamn building _somewhere_. Eddie let out a loud, angry noise and punched the panel of buttons as hard as he could without his other’s assistance.

The elevator beeped, jolted with a thunk and continued its descent downwards.

**“Eddie, you’re the only one in the world who could have that kind of dumb luck and I love you so much for it.”**

Eddie just looked (rightfully) dumbfounded.

After what felt like a least several minutes the elevator doors slid open again and everything was bright, white, sleek and sterile. Like a hospital if you dipped it in disinfectant, doused it with bleach and then covered it in Teflon.

“Okay, first let’s-”

He was cut off by Venom’s sudden pained screeching. They’d been apart of each other long enough for Eddie to be able to recognize just what kind of pain Venom was in right now. Ultrasonic sound waves. It was a frequency of sound that was far too high for him to hear but it tortured his other. And because he couldn’t hear it he couldn’t stop it. 

Whenever they were forcefully separated it always felt the same way.

Like every cell in his body was filled to bursting and in a rush they’d all erupt at once. It hurt like hell every time. 

It hurt like hell now.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for surgical settings, procedures and other body horror-ish themes.

In the seconds after Eddie came to and before he opened his eyes he veinly hoped that the current situation they were finding themselves in was just an unpleasant dream. That he’d wake up in their bed with the sound of Carnage’s faint snoring coming from down the hall, the girls’ giggling as they pretended to still be asleep and Sleeper starting to babble and whine softly for them to come cuddle and feed him. 

Of course that wasn’t the case when he finally did crack open his eyes to a painfully bright surgical light. He wanted to talk to Venom, he wanted to ask for his kids.

But an eloquent “Guuh.” was all he managed to gurgle out.

He was in a pretty significant amount of stinging, acidic pain but it felt really hazy and far away. Like maybe it wasn’t his own pain but someone else’s nearby or something. 

“I think the CEO is off her rocker on this one. This guy didn’t give birth to anything, there’s nothing in here at all. He’s just a normal dude.” The lackadaisical tone of one of the surgeons working over him was a little unsettling.

They didn’t realize he was awake as he flopped his head over to look down at what was happening to him. He was cut open, diaphragm to pelvis and hip to hip in an upside down cross. 

Huh. He supposed that explained the pain.

The surgeons working over him were wearing smocks splattered generously in what could only be his own blood.

Where was Venom and why weren’t they ripping off heads and limbs over this right now?

His arms and legs weren’t restrained as the surgeons looked around his insides and he tried to move them but the effort sent more pain surging through his open abdominal cavity. 

“Come on, you saw how that little red eyed one got when it saw him. This guy had to have given birth to that thing for that kind of reaction. It even called him Mama” Another person was talking to the first one as they pulled on his skin a little more.

It? That thing? Don’t call Sleeper a _thing_.

Sleeper! 

Sleeper had seen him! His baby was okay! Well, alive and conscious at least but he’d count that as a big win for right now. Keep talking. Keep talking about Sleeper and the others. Give him something, anything about where they are. About what’s happening to them.

“And his breast tissue is full. What else would he be using that for?”

“Then why isn’t there anything else in here, huh? Wombs don’t just disappear.”

Except sometimes they do.

“...S’gone...got rid of it…” He was finally able to at least slur that out, maybe if they knew he was awake they’d at least stop moving his internal organs around for a second.

“Holy shit, he’s awake. Why isn’t he under anesthesia?” The first surgeon, the one who was skeptical about his medical history, sounded more annoyed than shocked.

“He was under, that freaky alien of his probably did something to his tolerance.” That other person sounded unbothered, like this vivisection was going to continue whether he was awake or not.

“Wait, what do you mean gone? It’s gone now but you did have one? So you really did carry two of those things, then.”

Ugh, shit. Probably shouldn’t have given that away. Well…too late to take it back now. This was the reincarnation of the Life Foundation so they of course knew where Agony, Lasher, Phage and Scream came from. It was Carnage and Sleeper that were the mystery. Until he opened his fat mouth anyways. 

His musings on just how big of a dumbass he could be were cut short by the sudden slamming of the skeptic surgeon into the steel wall of the operating room. Looking over all he could see that was left of the surgeon was a bloody stain on the wall indicating their body had slid down to the floor- more than likely dead from that impact. As he started a little confused at the big red stain he could hear the other three surgeons dying on the floor to his other side. Turning back and squinting through the bright operating lamp there was the only one in the world he wanted to see right now- Venom.

“What-”

**“The Life scientists’ information about me is slightly outdated.”**

“Huh?” Man he was not articulate today.

**“After we were separated I was contained in a unit meant to incapacitate my usual symbiote shape or lack thereof. They did not know I am now able to hold my own form without you for a while and that worked to my advantage. It is hard for a fifteen gallon glass transport container to hold a nine foot frame. We got lucky that they were using a weaker transportation cell to move me to the real deal which was sure to much more reinforced.”**

“...We have to thank Flash later.” Eddie reasoned.

 **“You are hurt.”** Their voice was dark, darker than usual even.

“I’m mostly just...open.” He knew the anesthesia would continue to wear off and then yeah, he’d be in some serious pain.


	6. Chapter 6

They did what they always did after any time at all spent apart; they wasted no time joining back together. Fulfilling the symbiosis that they’d both come to consider their most meaningful state of being. It just wasn’t right to either of them when they weren’t together. Venom began to give up their solid and massive humanoid shape to rejoin with him until the moment they touched when they started to hiss and snarl before snapping back into form and putting space between them.

“What?” Eddie was puzzled by that strange reaction from them.

 **“You _burn_.”** They growled as if he’d done it on purpose.

“Venom stop fuckin’ around, we have to find the kids and you need to patch me up before I bleed out all over the place.” He rolled his eyes at their weird joke and extended his hand again.

Venom tried again with the same angry recoil after they came into contact.

**“I am not able to symbiose with you, Eddie. Your touch both inside and out is caustic. They have done something to you while they operated.”**

“This...this really isn’t going well for us.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his touch apparently not painful to himself.

“Did you learn anything at all about the kids? Where they are?” If they had that then they could deal with the rest later.

**“I did deduce something. I will tell you as you sew yourself up because seeing you this way pains me more than your current affliction.”**

He nodded, the anesthesia still working enough to have made him briefly forget that he is in fact still gaping open with his guts on full display. Being that they were in an operating room, sutures and stitching supplies were easy to find. He’d never actually sewn anything besides the one time when he was a kid and torn an arm off one of Mary’s stuffed animals. He felt so guilty that he sloppily reattached it with a needle and thread. This can’t be much harder, right?

Okay. Thread the curved needle. Push it in. Pull it out.

See? Easy.

He kept working his way up from his lower abdomen towards where his rib cage started and focused on literally anything else than the sickening tug of skin every time he pulled the nylon thread tight to form a new suture. Right now his focus was on the feel of Venom’s eyes watching him as he worked.

Dan would probably be proud of him right now if nothing else.

“Tell me what you found, need something to distract me from this.” He sucked in a breath as he pushed curved needle into his skin again.

**“The block I told you about that is inhibiting my detection ability. It stretches in all directions but it does have an epicenter where it is hardest to understand my senses. I am confident that’s where they must be. It is a particular design flaw to make your suppression device so easy to navigate.”**

For the first time in their relationship Venom started to explain the nuts and bolts of how their ability to track their kids’ chemical signatures worked and it helped him stay distracted from the sting and work faster until he was done and knotted off the last suture. Knowing absolutely nothing of wound care since all of his had come from Venom for the last ten years he brushed the whole stitched up cross with surgical glue followed by a few meters of gauze in hopes the glue and bandages would keep his handiwork from busting open.

Eddie decided that it didn’t look terrible for absolutely zero knowledge or experience. As long as it didn’t get infected and kill him before he and Venom could fix their growing list of problems.

“Let’s go. Can you keep your form for a while?” He was finally okay to sit up straight and stand.

**“Yes but I will be stronger if I find a host. Anyone will do really, most people who are not you suck equally anyways.”**

“Thank you for that weird ass compliment, V. Well we’ll find you someone nice and vulnerable, big guy.”


	7. Chapter 7

“This poor sap will do, right?.” Eddie crept around a corner to peek at a scientist who was reading some kind of monitor.

**“Yes, he will.”**

Venom once again lost their form and slithered across the shiny floor, sneaking up to heels of the scientist’s shoes. The man didn’t notice what was happening until it was far too late. He screamed as blackness overtook his face and then drew his face into a steady calm which let Eddie know that Venom had taken control. 

The had to tread lightly here, the place was crawling with anti-extraterrestrial technology as they’d learned with those ultrasonic emitters. 

“So, what’s this guy know?”

**“Very little. He thinks he is a high ranking employee here but he knows next to nothing. But he can guide us a little closer to the epicenter we’re looking for. Once his minimal useful knowledge runs out we will replace him.”**

Eddie wondered if he would have felt bad about not seeing this man as worth saving or even keeping alive eight or nine years ago but he shrugged it off. This guy obviously didn’t care about kidnapping, child endangerment or experimentation. Why spare the thought?

They wandered through the halls aimlessly as Venom rifled through the stranger’s brain, taking whatever information about this place that they could. Leading Eddie in a new direction every now and then as they learned a bit more. Eventually they halted outside a large, metal sliding door.

**“This door is significant but this man doesn’t know why. Next to no one is allowed through it. The block gets thicker here as well.”**

“Sounds like something we want is on the other side.” Eddie stood aside as his other formed their own clawed hand around the anonymous man’s own and forced the door open. 

This new section of the facility was illuminated with only red light as if it was a warning. More steel doors with narrow slits for windows lined the long acrid hallway. The strong antiseptic-like smell was already giving him a mild headache. 

“Daddy!” 

Two voices, the girls!

“Scream! Agony!” He whipped around trying to find which cell their voices were coming from.

Venom wrapped around the scientist’s body to show themselves.

“Dad!”

That was Phage!

**“Where are you, love? Help us find you.”**

“Dad, come on!”

Carnage!

They frantically searched every cell, the narrow windows and saturated red light making it harder. They were pounding on every cell door before the one at the very end slid open.

“You know for such an acclaimed investigative journalist I’d think you’d be able to differ between a high definition recording and the real thing.”

There she stood, this had to be Ms. Drake. Same dark hair and eyes as her predecessor sibling. 

“We had to show them your unconscious body for these reactions, Eddie. I’d like for you to appreciate them a little bit more.” She said matter of factly.

Venom roared and it rattled the cell windows.

“Well come into the lab so we can chat then, it’s easier to see in there anyways.” She motioned behind her to the door she’d come from.

They’d checked every cell, the kids weren’t in this corridor. The false voices gave them false hope. Following her would either lead them closer or further away from them but they had to take the chance- there were no other options.


	8. Chapter 8

Venom stepped in front of Eddie defensively before the entered the lab that Drake had already walked into and motioned for them to follow. Just like everything else here it was shiny, white and sterile. As their eyes passed over the room in an initial inventory their sight was snagged by a wash of black and cool green, like petroleum oil spilled over jade.

“Lasher!” Eddie choked on his sob and ran to his son.

**“Eddie!”**

Lasher’s eyes got wide and he opened his arms in stunned relief. Eddie scooped his son up in his arms in a devastating split second of selfish forgetfulness- confused as to why Venom seemed to be reaching for him and not their son. 

Eddie wrapped around Lasher tightly and Lasher screeched, seized and writhed in his arms. Eddie jerked his body away as the remembrance of his affliction came rushing back, Lasher crying and pushing himself away in fear. Losing balance and stumbling backwards into a fall then using his legs to push back further from the source of the pain.

“What did you do to me?!” He screeched in an agonized way similar to his son.

Lasher cowered up against the wall furthest from them, fearful of Venom too for not preventing that pain. Drake had made their son terrified of them both.

Drake crossed over to where their young son was still trembling and rested her manicured hand on his cheek. Lasher recoiled slightly from her touch too though not the way he’d recoiled from the shock of physical corrosion burning through his face and body.

“Your every atom is caustic to them now. Your ‘other’ and the offspring. Something I was able to whip up thanks to the tens of thousands of dollars your father so generously handed over to me and the company. You know you’re father was right Eddie, these malformed creatures should not exist. They defy nature in such a way that their structures can give us cures for diseases we never thought people could survive, they can take us to the furthest reaches of the universe, they can give us answers to questions we never even dreamed to ask. But beyond those kinds of resources they cannot be humanized. Though they may masquerade as young, small and vulnerable they are not children and it’s better to disregard the notion- for all our sakes.” 

“How dare you-“

“Not to be crass but these symbiotes have got their claws so deep in you that you can’t tell what’s real anymore. It’s what their species _does_ , Eddie.”

He was seething now.

“Klyntar are a loner species not a pack species. This show they’re putting on for you goes against every one of their natural instincts. They’re tricking you for their own survival. Think about it; you give them food, shelter, all the chemicals they couldn’t get without a strong host, you even still kill people for them! Your father told me about what a good man you used to be. You can be that person again, Eddie. He begged me to save you and the only way I could get you away from them was to make it impossible for you to touch any of them. Please believe me when I say this is a kindness. I am saving your life and so many others.” 

**“Eddie do not-“**

He didn’t even need V to finish that sentence, he didn’t believe a thing Drake was saying. He didn’t his other to tell him she was a liar.

“If you could ever have even a splinter of what I have, if you could ever fathom it, you’d know my father was an angry, hateful man who died without anyone in the world who loved him. I wouldn’t give a single thing of mine for everything of yours or his. No matter how _kind_ you think it would be. I know you hate me because I killed your brother, Courtney. And I’d do it again.” Eddie growled animalistically.

“Well, you’ll be changing your tune here shortly. I am going to show you exactly how these creatures- how _you_ \- can save millions.” Her soft smile made his blood go cold as she lead Lasher gently by the hand.


	9. Chapter 9

Ms. Drake lead them into a hallway and explained the stringent quarantine protocols to them as she walked. High heels clicking steadily on the shiny, white floor. She was holding Lasher’s hand giving him little choice but to walk alongside her. Eddie and Venom watched only Lasher as they walked down the hall.

Lasher kept looking back them shyly- weary of being caught by Ms. Drake. But with the weariness of her there was also weariness of them. The boy was both confused and hurt by the fact that his parents would hurt him like they did; his dad for doing it and his father for not stopping it from happening when they _knew_. Beyond that he was confused and tormented that they hadn’t rescued him or his siblings yet. Surely his father could sense how close by they all were? This short, bony woman was no match for his parents. He didn’t understand. 

Ms. Drake lead them through a heavy duty pressure lock door and the sight on the other side knocked the air out of them as if all the oxygen in the world had burned away at once. Six containment cells arranged in a hexagon. One of their young children in each except for an empty cell that had to be Lasher’s.

A grating shriek grabbed their attention, not unlike the sound of two abrasive metals scraping against each other. Carnage didn’t have the same harsh start that Agony, Phage, Scream and Lasher did. Besides SHIELDs ill thought out introduction to their family there was only one instance in the seven year old’s young life where they’d had ever been seriously hurt. 

It was the ninth week of their three month long pregnancy with Carnage when they still lived in that shitty apartment in an even shittier part of the city. The landlord never shelled out for anything in the building; their sink had been leaking for four months, two of the windows didn’t close all the way and there was more than one loose floorboard and rusty nail in their tiny place. So pest control wasn’t ever something Eddie considered would be a priority to the landlord. Especially halfway decent pest control because he was infamously cheap. 

So when they were making their way down the stairwell at the ungodly hour of 2am for one of their very rare pregnancy cravings (raspberry gelato and hot banana peppers to be specific) they really had no reason to think it would go as disastrously as it did. 

“We don’t need a cab, V. The bodega is less than two blocks away. We could just take the bike but you refuse to let me ride it these days.” Eddie shrugged playfully.

**“You know why. Too dangerous.”**

“Like anything could happen to us with you around, V.” He rolled his eyes and smiled.

Venom always warmed up pridefully whenever anyone talked about them being a good protector to Eddie and the feeling only seemed to double once that included their baby too. 

When his shoes hit the landing of the second floor he didn’t have time to think before he was doubled over in excruciating pain. 

**“Eddie! Something is wrong, something is causing us pain.”**

“Yeah no shi- _auugh!!_ ”

It felt like his stomach was being ripped apart by a blender with his surrounding organs being sucked in too. Sharp, fast, brutal pain ricocheting in him. Like a hot iron stabbing him internally. He realized Venom didn’t mean something was hurting them and him, they meant something was hurting them and the baby. 

No, no, no, no, no.

Venom had been honest about this from the beginning and this was it. This was the worst case scenario Venom had warned him about up front. That their bond wasn’t strong enough for this and his body was rejecting and terminating. This pain, this feeling of being ripped open meant that either their baby was dying or he was.

**“Eddie!!”**

He was coughing up a lot of blood and it kind of sounded like someone was yelling at him but he was being dragged down into unconsciousness.

He didn’t know how long he was out or where he was now but he was overcome with nausea when he woke up. In the middle of his dry heaving he heard a familiar woman’s voice frantically running towards him.

“Trash can! Trash can! Do it in the trash can!”

And a second later Anne was shoving the small trash can from his bathroom under his chin just in time for him to retch into it.

“The baby...Venom. What-“ He gasped through the heaving.

“Eddie, everything’s okay. Take a deep breath. Just breathe.”

“No!” The last thing he could remember told him that nothing was okay at all. Before he passed out either he was dying or his baby was and if he was here then-

**“Eddie, listen to Anne. Everything is okay.”**

“V-Venom? No...” The idea of them coming around before him was somehow worse.

**“This stress is not helping you recover, darling.”**

Why was Venom trying to calm him down?! 

“Oh good, you’re awake. I can check your pupils.” Dan was walking in with a smile. A very professional doctor-y smile that he clearly used for work.

Dan knelt in front of him with a pen light and asked him to track it with his eyes. As he did Eddie noted that he was wearing scrubs, not the usual nice outfit under a lab coat he usually wore to work. He must have been in surgery and come straight here which Eddie felt bad about.

“What happened? Why are you all acting like nothing is wrong?!” He was getting a little hysterical about being left in the dark here.

“Well it’s not that nothing is wrong. It’s just not as bad as what we thought when we found you collapsed and unconscious at the bottom of a stairwell with blood coming out of your mouth.” Dan explained as continued his light exam 

**“The baby experienced some pain and reacted. They are okay now. We are more worried about you.”**

“ _Pain?_ What pain?”

“Your apartment building apparently bought pest repellent that uses ultrasonic sound to keep unwanted critters away. Humans can’t hear them so you couldn’t have known they were put in the stairwell. When I asked the landlord said they were plugged in yesterday afternoon.” Anne was going it over it slowly, making sure he was understanding before moving on.

“Oh God, you were both hurt.” His voice cracked a little as he spoke to Venom. Damn hormones.

**“The repellent devices are small and only produced enough frequency to cause me discomfort. But even that amount of frequency is torturous to an infant symbiote, unborn ones especially.”**

“Acute fetal distress. The baby experienced some intense temporary pain but no injury and the cause of the distress was adequately removed.” Dan clicked the light off.

“Removed?”

“Annie packed all the devices in a box and then ran the box over with her car.” Dan further clarified. 

“So…No miscarriage? The kid’s okay?” Dammit, he was getting choked up again.

“Perfectly fine.” Dan smiled again, a real one this time though.

“But it felt like I was being torn apart.”

“You kind of were. Kid’s got some serious claws, Eddie. You had substantial internal bleeding and the little tyke’s kick broke two of your ribs.”

“Jesus.”

“Venom’s taken care of everything but you still have to take it easy for a few days just in case.”

 

Anne went out and bought enough food to feed all three of them for a week, gave him the passwords to every streaming service she or Dan subscribed to and only agreed to return to her own home after Eddie promised not to leave the apartment for any reason under threat of having his head wrapped in duct tape. 

By the time they were alone again it was only noon but it felt like so much later and he was already tired again. He could feel that Venom was tired too, they’d expended more energy today than anyone after all. And of course because they were both on the verge of falling asleep their baby was becoming rambunctious again.

“Try not to break any more ribs, kiddo.” Eddie was joking of course. Mostly.

Venom responded with something like a purr at the base of his skull.

“We’re sorry you were so hurt and scared. We’ll never let that happen again.” Eddie drummed his fingers gently against his stomach which felt huge to him now that they were nearing the end.

**“We will keep you safe, little one.”**

Looking at Carnage now it was impossible for Eddie and Venom not to be reminded that they very much let all of this happen. Let his father come close to their children. It was their fault.

“Carnage!” Eddie slammed the glass cell wall.

“Two-way mirrors and soundproofing, Eddie. None of them can see or hear you. That would seriously skew our data.” Drake informed them.

Carnage was growling and swiped elongated vicious claws across a scientist’s chest. The scientist looked annoyed as blood seeped through her white coat and she flipped a switch on a handheld panel. Carnage fell to the floor in convulsions.

“With the eldest we want to uncover the hybrid genus’ more recessive evolutionary traits. Ones from your side of the gene pool, Eddie. If the Klyntar half can’t protect them from painful stimulus then the human half might pick up the slack. Maybe like an X-Gene or something similar. That’s what we’re hoping for.” Ms. Drake looked almost manic as she seemed to ponder the possibilities.

“Carnage!!” His throat stung from screaming their oldest’s name.

Venom punched the glass only to roar and snarl again in pain and quickly snap back into their anonymous host body. 

“Did you really think I’d let you in here without protecting the place against you first?” Ms. Drake was incredulous.

“The material of these containment walls is a solidified, transparent and ballistics proof version of what I’ve put inside Eddie’s cells. Skin cells, muscle cells, bone cells, blood cells…there’s not a single part of him that wouldn’t agonize you, Venom. That must feel lonely for you.”

**“I will tear your head off as my children watch.”**

“Do you want to show your dads what your brothers and sisters are doing, Lasher?” She smiled softly at the six year old again.

Lasher’s face crumbled and he drew in a frightened stuttering breath. The trauma and terror of the situation weighing on him heavily. He shook his head.

“That’s okay, sweetheart. I can show them.” Ms. Drake ran a soothing hand over Lasher’s forehead and he flinched at the touch.


	10. Chapter 10

The edges of the fire licked just inches away from Scream’s face, her hair whipping around wildly from the oxygen displacement as she stood still. Fists balled up at her sides. This was the first real indicator either Eddie or Venom had ever seen of just what level of torment their middle children must have endured before being found. They saw Phage perched in the corner of his own cell- half at the top of the wall, half on the ceiling. Observing the scientist sitting in the room taking notes silently. Pressed into his clavicle was a central line IV port with a long tube feeding something red into him. Human blood, Venom concluded after a few moments of studying it. 

“That blood is infected with leukemia and other abnormal leukocytes, we’ve also introduced infected bone marrow tissue to his system. We want to see just how much and how quickly their composition can heal serious disease. His body has been tolerating it amazingly. I wouldn’t call it cure worthy yet but it certainly makes for a highly profitable treatment. People will pay any price for it.” Drake explained after Venom spoke. 

Agony Was in the same situation as Scream only facing frequencies upwards of 50,000Hz. She too was standing stone still in refusal to show weakness. However her grimacing face was giving her away, she was in a lot of pain. Violent rage was spewing off of Venom while Eddie was locked up in despair.

“We’re testing the upper limits of both your daughters’ endurance, we didn’t expect them to be able to take this much.” Drake sounded exasperated.

Sleeper’s confined room was the most full. He was in an isolette with a Geiger counter in one corner of the enclosed bassinet, an electromagnetic spectrum reader in another, an aerosol toxicity detector in the third and a thermal camera in the fourth. A pulse ox wrapped around one ankle. His eyes covered with gauze pads. Judging by his slow breathing and stillness he looked like he might be asleep right now.

“His eyes weren’t covered until about an hour ago. His abilities are particularly emotion driven at this age so we want to prevent him from seeing you until we’re properly ready to study and record his reaction. He may be able to sense you before then though, we’ll be monitoring that too.” Drake explained the sight deprivation measure.

“Sleeper…” Eddie said his name out loud even though he knew he couldn’t hear him.

Venom grasped his shoulder with the anonymous man’s hand. Comforting to know it was his other even if it didn’t feel quite right. 

“Come on, then. Let’s go see your little one.” Drake sounded jovial knowing he wouldn’t be able to touch Sleeper at all.

Upon entering the room they found it to be freezing cold, Eddie could see his breath. This couldn’t be making Sleeper very comfortable but at least it wouldn’t hurt him like heat would. It took every ounce of willpower for them not to run to their baby who still couldn’t see them. The closer they got they saw Sleeper stir a little and turn his head towards them.

“Paaaa. Papapapa.” Sleeper babbled for Venom.

Sleeper could feel Venom there. 

They got a few steps closer and Sleeper moved his arms and opened and closed his hands like he was trying to grab something.

“Mamaaa.” He could feel Eddie too. Some kind of chemical connection that they’d never been so aware of or grateful for. They always thought it was something babies just did- get excited when they saw their parents after time apart. They never realized he could do it with his eyes closed too, just by the feel of them. 

Eddie had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to stop himself from sprinting to their baby and scooping him up. He ached at the thought of never touching any of them again. Of course he could still be their father without touch but he didn’t know how to fix this and neither did Venom. They didn’t even know if there was a way to fix it at all. This could be permanent. This could be forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In First Host Sleeper says he has a chemical connection with Eddie so they can communicate without being bonded and I always thought that was so cute!


	11. Chapter 11

Ms. Drake was nodding as another lab employee spoke to her in a hushed tone as he pointed at a chart on his clipboard. 

“Right. Take Lasher back to his room and continue trials.” She said finally, giving the lab employee their six year old’s hand. 

**“Lasher!”** Venom called after them, unable to see Lasher taken away again.

Lasher looked back at Venom with begging eyes, too afraid to speak as he was pulled away. Venom couldn’t stand around as their child was taken away again. They engulfed their anonymous host’s body and launched in a fit of rage at the lab employee leading their son away. The man obviously had anti-symbiote equipment, that they knew, but the poor man didn’t have the reflexes he needed to save his life. One of Venom’s taloned hands crushed the man’s skull while the other ripped his lower half off of the rest of him. Blood was always at least a little saccharine to Venom however the taste of this man’s was more syrupy than usual but maybe they were being connotative. Lasher was still holding the hand of the now lifeless arm before he looked at it blankly and dropped it. 

Venom realized a little late that probably wasn’t great for a small child to witness. Better than being taken away from them again though. Better than more experimentation. More pain. 

“Venom, do you really think I have an endless supply of those people? He just transferred here from NASA. Wanted to learn about extraterrestrials and you go and dismember him.” Ms. Drake sighed.

Venom just growled roughly in return as Eddie’s fingers twitched in held back exultation. 

“Not letting Lasher go back to his room will only serve to hurt him.” She said it like a threat because it was. 

Venom tensed up as another nervous looking scientist came to escort Lasher back to his room. This time they let them go, they didn’t want Lasher to pay for their reckless behavior.

Having your child taken hurt. Seeing them briefly just to watch them be taken again hurt worse. 

“Well then, let’s continue shall we? Eddie I want you to take the gauze off Sleeper’s eyes so he can see you.” Drake instructed in an excited tone.

Eddie swallowed. Not wanting to follow any order of hers but desperate to be near any of his children. 

“Only touch the gauze, though. Don’t want you hurting the poor thing.” She added.

Eddie’s hands trembled as he very slowly peeled off the bandages. Sleeper’s eyes were closed when he got them all the way off. The almost five month old blinked and focused his bright red eyes up at his father. Eddie could feel Venom behind him, looking over his shoulder. Sleeper’s whole face lit up and he excitedly reached for them like always. For the first time Eddie couldn’t reciprocate and stood aching as Venom reached past him to pick Sleeper up. 

“Measurable increase in Class A and Class E metabolic by-products.” A different female voice said over a hidden intercom in the ceiling. 

“He’s thrilled to see us but is confused that we aren’t together.” Venom translated the message. 

Eddie felt his gut clench and in doing so it sent more raw and sore pain reverberating through his barely stitched together abdomen. Some blood had started to soak through the sutures and bandages not too long ago and he knew Drake had noticed through his shirt. Without Venom he only had the clothes he’d put on that morning which seemed like a lifetime ago now. There were no windows down here- it might not even be the same day anymore. 

“I’m sure you’ve had more than enough experience with this but it must still amaze you. He feels happy, you feel happy. He feels upset, you feel upset. Hell, he’s so excited to see you both that I’m feeling giddy all the way over here. He was so irritated earlier that the fit he threw resulted in two of my employees getting into a physical fight with each other, they just couldn’t shake his influence. Besides them, this little one has been knocking out and sedating almost anyone who gets near him so all our observations have to be done via camera.”

Drake turned and waved to a spot on the ceiling.

“Hi boss.” The voice from the ceiling said to her.

“I want you to seriously think about that, Eddie. In your offspring we’ve found cures for devastating disease, the ability to heal physical wounds seamlessly, passports to the depths of the universe and literal happiness on command. People will pay any price for any one of these things.” Drake said.

“Mamaaa!” Sleeper wriggled in Venom’s arms, stretching his arms out for him.

“Would you really sacrifice millions of lives for six?” She asked him and only him.


	12. Chapter 12

“What kind of question is that? They’re my children. I’d sacrifice _billions_ of lives for theirs.” Eddie was almost unhinged by the absurdity of that question.

There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind. Of course he would. Every time.

“Then you’re not the righteous man you claim to be.” She stated.

Okay, he actually laughed out loud at that one.

“You think I’ve ever claimed to be righteous? You must not know me, lady. I’ve done things that would make Berith blush.” 

“I mean honestly, we once bifurcated a guy because we caught him taking upskirt pictures on the bus. Bifurcated and then ate him. I already know where I’m headed when I die.”

“In fact the _only_ thing that might spare my soul is those kids. But if saving them really does earn me a one way ticket to fire and brimstone then I’ll take it.” Eddie finished.

“Glad to know you’re at least confident in your choice but ultimately it isn’t yours.” Ms. Drake smiled politely.

“Maaaaam!!” Sleeper was calling for him more desperately now and starting to cry. He’d never been held by just one of them without it being followed very shortly by the other, he didn’t like it. He wanted them both. Constantly being held by both your parents at once must make it strange and difficult not to be held that way by them.

They could all feel the distress and hurt pouring off of him at seemingly being ignored by his dad standing just out of reach, watching him tauntingly. 

“I can’t touch you Sleeper, I’m so sorry.” Eddie voice broke again as he tried to explain it to him in words like he’d be able to understand but he just reached more urgently and cried harder.

“You’re really distracting him, Eddie. No one is going to pay to feel as miserable as he does right now. You’re going to have to go.” Ms. Drake sighed as if she was disappointed in this turn of events.

He was briefly perplexed about what the hell she meant until she pulled out her smartphone, tapped it a few times and tucked it back into her blazer pocket. 

His vision tunneled so abruptly he was sure that’s just how the world must have always looked to him. His mouth went dry and his chest tightened up so painfully he gasped. Well, he tried to gasp. No air was moving in or out of his lungs no matter what he did. His skin ran cold and clammy but he was starting to sweat at the same time. He tried to speak but it came out as a haunting string of creaky groans. 

“Relax, Eddie. It’ll be over soon. Despite what you may think of me I actually don’t need you to suffer. I just need your kids.”

**“Eddie!!”**

“Multisystem organ failure. A failsafe. Because I knew that even when given the opportunity to become the savior of all mankind you would choose those little abominations and you wouldn’t give them up without being the absolute nuisance you always are. But rest assured, Eddie. It will all be very quick for Venom and the little ones before they give their lives to save us all and you can die knowing that you’ve saved more people than anyone ever has or ever will.” 

It would hurt. A lot. It might even kill them. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered without Eddie. Venom deposited Sleeper safely onto the floor and extended one of the anonymous hosts’ arms out towards Eddie. He moved fast to jerk away from Venom but Venom was faster- always was. 

“V, no!” Eddie demanded they stop but when did they ever listen anyways.

Venom merged with Eddie as naturally as they ever did. As beautifully as it ever was, even after all these years. Unconcerned with whatever pain that was coming their way. Weaving in between individual cells, seeping into bones, encasing fragile organs, rippling under skin. 

It didn’t hurt. It felt amazing. It felt like belonging.

Eddie stayed mid-flinch, frozen in anticipation. Waiting for his love to start to burn.

But it didn’t come.

“What’s happening? Am I dead?” Eddie asked honestly.

 **“You don’t hurt. At all. You feel how you always do.”** Venom sounded equally confused.

“Yeah...So do you. Why aren’t you burning right now ?”

**“Your biochemistry is rewriting itself...or rather, something is rewriting it. New cells are being copied from the old ones, clean of the substance Drake infused you with. The infected cells are dying off rapidly.”**

“What would make all my cells suddenly repair themselves? Are you the one doing it, V?”

Whatever was happening inside him was making a difference. Venom was restarting all his organ systems, he could breathe again and he could feel his heartbeat. The wound running up and down his front was knitting itself up into healthy, healed skin. 

**“I am not doing the work at your cellular level. I was not able to make physical contact with you to alter it. The substance that is rewriting your biochemistry is being transmitted through the air. It is...pheromonal.”**

They both stopped all thought and turned to look at Sleeper. Still sitting on the floor very upset, crying, reaching, screaming for him and on the verge of complete meltdown. 

“Sleeper? C-can he really do that?” 

**“We still do not know all of what he can do. He has different organs that do different things which neither you nor I have. But there are classes of pheromones and other metabolic byproducts that can change the physiology of other beings.”**

“Maaama!!” Sleeper was still reaching out, screaming and crying.

**“Eddie, he is very upset. Please pick up our son.”**


	13. Chapter 13

**“It is alright, Eddie. I will shield him if your touch reverts.”**

He was in such a state of shock that all he could do was follow his other’s simple verbal instructions. Once he picked the baby up his bawling slowed down into smaller cries, the momentum of his intense emotions too strong to stop on a dime. But his cries were stopping, not getting worse so they took that to mean that his touch wasn’t caustic. A hard lump swelled in his throat and the edges of his vision blurred with tears. 

“We’re so, so sorry, Sleeps. We’ll never ever let you go again. Your siblings either- we have to rescue them.” 

Eddie muttered apologies and sentiments into the top of Sleeper’s head. Breathing in his unique scent that was partly new baby and partly the same warm scent as his father and siblings that Venom once likened to burning starlight. Eddie always took their word for it.

“We have to rescue them, Venom.” He said it again more urgently. Now that his touch wouldn’t agonize them he felt more able to get them back️.

“Sleeper doesn’t have the ability to nullify the chemical volatility I encoded into your chromosomal design. The child is gifted but even he can’t do that. I made sure of it.” Drake looked at the three of them unable to accept what just happened.

 **“No, he can’t.”** Venom agreed.

**“Sleeper was merely the catalytic agent. Your people operated on Eddie, they must have noticed that our children have influenced his biology as much as he has influenced theirs.”**

Drake narrowed her eyes, calculating.

**“Embedded in Eddie's cells are threads of their composition, woven through his entire body like netting. Cords of their own cellular makeup are braided up his spine and spun around his heart. These symbiotic cells lack any kind of sentience because they are satellite from the children but behave in the same protective and regenerative manner that grants the children their immunity from human illness and injury. These threads are non-sentient and so well assimilated to his body that the corrosive injection you introduced did not recognize them as separate from his native tissues. But they also couldn’t dispel the substance without an activating agent. Sleeper’s pheromone triggered the symbiotic physiology’s ability to both destroy Eddie’s infected cells and generate new ones.”**

**“With Sleeper’s help these residual cells also assisted me in healing the grievous wound your surgeons left in his abdomen.”**

“How the hell can you have a significant enough number of symbiotic cells from your children seven years after having the first and never carrying the other four? Sleeper maybe but the other five? I don’t buy it.” Drake scoffed, thrown off balance by her sudden loss of ground.

**“Human affection and nurturing for their offspring is often expressed through physical contact. Over the last seven years Eddie and our children have become bonded in their own way and not even you could reverse that.”**

“I’ll just burn you away like any other symbiote.”

Drake tapped away at her phone again and the place lit up. The whole room crackled in an enclosed firestorm. Drake didn’t seem to mind the way the edges of her skirt and tips of her hair singed. 

Drake looked Eddie in the eyes through the flames and he weighed his options. The only way out was through but the injury to the three of them might be catastrophic. As their eyes bore into one another Drake’s pupils suddenly and dramatically constricted. It took him a fraction of a second to comprehend the way her jaw locked up, unable to open due to the fact that she was being electrocuted. Drake fell to the ground anticlimactically and behind her was Jessica, poised with her fist out still crackling with a bio-electric venom blast.

“I know you’re a revenge is sweet kind of guy Eddie but the bitch had to die.” Jess reasoned.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this angsty sub-plot! Now we can get back to the HIWTSI fluff!

“Jess!” To say they were surprised to see her would be an understatement.

“You two went MIA five hours ago so I came in after you. This place is a labyrinth. I assume Courtney Drake was the mastermind behind all this or I just killed the wrong person.” She stated.

“Uh, yeah. She was definitely the bad guy here. Vivisection, torture, child experimentation for profit- the whole nine.” Eddie assured her.

“Okay good. Boys, sprinklers?” She pressed a finger to a hidden earpiece.

Sleeper clapped and grinned as they were drenched in water from above, extinguishing the flames.

“Where are the others?” She asked cupping Sleeper’s face briefly.

 **“Back the way we came. Still being watched by other doctors.”** Venom struggled to hide their still fuming rage.

“Then what the fuck are we- oh, sorry Sleeps.” She stopped to apologize for her language even though she probably knew he heard worse from them.

“Lets go!” She reiterated.

The large two way mirrors looking into the rooms were blocked by smooth titanium walls now, they couldn’t see inside. 

“Phage! Carnage!” Eddie called out for the two who would be in the rooms closest to him if he remembered right. 

**“Soundproof, Eddie. We need to get passed the barrier.”**

“There’s no control room or buttons! Drake must have done this remotely. I don’t know how to get in.” Eddie’s fists clenched anxiously.

“Daddy!!”

One moment they were standing alone in desperation the next they were being swarmed by five Klyntar hybrid spawn who were more than just a little happy to see them.

“Girls?” Eddie twisted around trying to see Scream and Agony who were desperately clinging to his shoulders.

Phage buried himself into Eddie’s side as Venom wrapped tendrils around him to pull him closer. 

“Don’t go.” Phage’s voice was muffled and his face was hidden but he was definitely crying.

“No, no, no. We’re not going anywhere. Never.” 

**“How did you get out?”**

“Through the vents. Some gas came through them and the scientists’ faces bled...or melted?” Carnage struggled for the right word to describe what happened.

“SHIELD neurotoxin. Sorry it had to get so graphic.” Jess apologized.

“I made them cover their eyes.” Carnage said referring to the younger four.

Eddie started to pull his hand away from Carnage’s grasp to pull them into a hug but they squeezed it tighter, completely unwilling to let go. So he hugged them a little awkwardly while still holding their hand. Venom was more outside of him than inside of him with all the hugging and squeezing of their children that they were doing. 

“Lasher! Lash, come here!” Eddie wriggled one arm free to invite the six year old into it. 

Lasher stood about a foot away, fidgeting with his hands and watching them intently. He looked at the ground and took a small step back.

A stab of hurt coursed through both of them. He was still afraid.

Jessica looked at them with sadness but understanding, she knelt down and held out her hand to him.

“Everything’s okay now, Lasher. Your Dads are taking you home.” She explained.

Lasher looked at Eddie and Venom, seeing his siblings with them made him a little less cautious but not enough. He went to Jessica and wrapped his hands around her arm.

The trip home was quiet, the kids mostly asleep on top of them. It had only been two days since the attack but they were sure the kids didn’t get any sleep or food to go with their torture. Agony, Scream and Phage already seemed to be creeping back towards normal- but like the first time they were rescued they were talking less than usual. Not totally silent though. Carnage demanded that only they get to hold Sleeper the whole flight home. They weren’t sure what that meant or what Carnage had seen but they left it alone and didn’t ask any questions for the time being. Sleeper seemed happy enough with the arrangement.

Lasher was firmly planted in Jess’ lap, clung to her as she filled out paperwork. He still didn’t say anything to either of them.

There was nothing less than a frenzy waiting for them when they got home. Anne and Dan, Flash, Felicia and Andi, Mary and Scott, Miles, Peter and Mary Jane, Director Hill, Liz Allen, Dr. Steve, even Claire. 

“We got the first flight here!” Mary politely pushed passed him to hug the kids.

Anne couldn’t even wait to say anything at all before she was cuddling Sleeper as she too fell to her knees to give the other kids a thorough checking over. Dan gave them a subtle nod to assure them he and Dr. Steve would be doing the actual checking shortly. 

“Everyone came almost immediately when Jessica called. We’ve just been waiting here for you.” Anne looked up at the two of them.

“How much do you know?” Eddie cringed a little

“Jessica told us enough. You don’t have to talk about it now.”

“It’s like a party! Do we get presents?” Scream asked excitedly. There _were_ quite a few people here.

“You can have anything in the whole world.” Flash grinned picking her up off the ground.

Lasher detached from Jess to hug Anne. Annie very much noticed that Lasher seemed to be avoiding Eddie and Venom. Instead of prying into what was clearly a sensitive subject she just hugged him back as much as he wanted. 

After almost endless reassurances of all of their safety and well-being plus a thorough exam by both their doctors which Anne supervised like a hawk as if she had any medical training at all. Not wanting to freak the kids out of what seemed to be their best efforts to make things go back to normal, everyone migrated to the backyard when Flash started an impromptu barbecue to lighten the mood and ease the anxiety that had lead up to their return home.

Eddie and Mary stood together near the backdoor sipping beers and trying to delay the inevitable conversation they had to have with each other.

“Did the hospital call you?” Eddie finally asked her, the dread eating at him.

“They did. They left a voicemail but I didn’t call back.” She answered.

“Was he buried?”

“Next to mom.” She nodded.

“Were you there?”

“No. Didn’t want to dignify it. He didn’t really deserve a send off- especially not from us.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever visited mom as an adult. Since I moved out at least. I should.”

Mary just swirled her beer and looked at him.

“I never understood why she did what she did. She knew she wouldn’t make it and died for a kid she’d never meet. But I think I get it now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d do it for them. Even if it didn’t turn out the best I understand why she did it. I’d want them to exist no matter what too. Even if I couldn’t be a part of it.”

“You’re a good dad, Eddie.” She shifted her gaze from him to the kids playing with Miles and Andi across the yard.

Lasher’s eyes met theirs before he glanced away and edged behind Carnage. Venom panged with an unnameable amount of guilt.


End file.
